


The First Rule of First Contact

by kenzz_95



Series: Trektober 2020 [9]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Aliens try to make them do it, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, No Sex, Sex Pollen, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:00:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26864032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenzz_95/pseuds/kenzz_95
Summary: In Leonard's opinion, the first rule of first contact should be to never eat or drink anything unfamiliar. That belief only gets reinforced when Jim takes a honorary drink from a new alien culture that makes him, well, just really damn horny and with a one track mind for his best friend. Leonard knows he can't take advantage of Jim in such a state, but the fact that he's wanted Jim like this for years just makes it all the more difficult to deal with.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Series: Trektober 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948633
Comments: 4
Kudos: 90
Collections: Trektober 2020





	The First Rule of First Contact

**Author's Note:**

> Trektober Day 9: Sex/love pollen
> 
> This is sort of a combo of sex and love pollen, but it's not "pollen" strictly speaking.
> 
> This is another one of my fics that's rated M more for the subject matter than for having an actual sex scene, just FYI.

In Leonard’s opinion, the first rule of first contact should be never to eat or drink anything before a full analysis was done to determine what it was and what it would do to the human body. But initiating contact with a new species was a delicate affair, one that Leonard was glad he didn’t have more than a cursory role in, but Jim was always front and center, playing the role of diplomat and Starfleet representative. Jim was a great diplomat, and part of that was a willingness to roll with the punches. So when the elders on the new planet they were visiting offered Jim a ceremonial drink and made it clear that being offered the drink was a huge honor, it was bottoms up with seemingly not a second thought from Jim. 

For a while it seemed like everything was alright. Jim remarked that the drink tasted a bit like cotton candy, and the reception continued. Leonard noticed that Jim was a bit touchier with the crew than he usually was, but the doctor chalked it up to the drink likely being slightly alcoholic. Jim didn’t have much by the way of physical boundaries at the best of times, but get a few drinks in him and he could get quite handsy. But then after maybe an hour Jim began looking deeply uncomfortable, and  _ that _ Leonard certainly paid attention to. He was walking around the large, open air hall with a strange expression on his face and fidgeting with his clothes, and Leonard made a mental note to haul his friend to medbay as soon as the reception was over, just in case.

As it turns out Leonard didn’t have to wait to get a closer look at Jim, because suddenly Jim had an arm around his shoulders and lips to his ear,

“Bones, come with me, I need to talk to you about something.”

Trying to ignore the shiver sent down his spine by Jim being so close, Leonard allowed Jim to pull him away from the reception, which frankly he was bored of anyway. If he had to guess, Leonard would’ve said Jim was about to own up to whatever had put that uncomfortable look on his face for the past hour, but he never would’ve guessed what actually happened. 

What actually happened was Jim pushing Leonard against a wall and shoving his tongue in Leonard’s mouth. The kiss was rough and wet and Jim was kissing Leonard like he was the air itself. The suddenness of it briefly stunned him, but when he realized what was happening he kissed Jim back. Of course he did. This was what he had wanted for, God, it must have been years at this point. He wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Except Jim was going real damn fast, rubbing against Leonard like a damn cat in heat, and with the way their bodies were pressed together it was impossible for Leonard to ignore the hardness in Jim’s pants. Something about this felt wrong. Good, but wrong. So he pushed his best friend away from him and said,

“Okay, Jim, what the fuck?”

“Please, Bones,” Jim begged, “Please, I need it, please.”

And  _ that _ didn’t sound like the Jim he knew at all. Something was going on and Leonard allowed himself a brief moment to feel embarrassed for ever going along with this and letting himself feel hope, but then his doctor and protective best friend side took over and he flipped open his communicator and requested a beam up straight to medbay.

Jim not being a compliant patient was hardly a cause for concern, but the exact nature of his noncompliance as Leonard took scans in medbay  _ was _ . Jim’s sudden desire to get in his best friend’s pants was not diminished by the change of scenery, and in fact only seemed to be amplified in the empty medbay, most of the crew being down planetside for the reception. Jim wasn’t mad at Leonard for pulling him away from the reception, in fact the only thing Jim seemed to be feeling at the moment was wildly horny, to the point of absurdity. It was difficult for Leonard to get scans done because Jim seemed actually unable to keep his hands to himself. Maybe it would’ve been funny with someone else, but given Leonard’s actual feelings towards Jim it was just painful. He longed to be able to just forget about the dozens of warning signs and let Jim have his way with him, but if Jim was under the influence of something, as Leonard strongly suspected, then the younger man wasn’t fully able to consent right now. Leonard keeping his hands to himself wasn’t even really a question, it was simply the only acceptable course of action. 

The scans revealed an elevated level of certain hormones, but nothing dangerous. It seemed the other man was just really, really damn horny which, while irritating, was hardly life threatening. 

Peeling Jim’s hands off him once again, Leonard said,

“Look here, Jim. I don’t want you running around the ship in this state, you’re just going to end up embarrassing yourself. I’ll pull the privacy screen around the bed, it’s, well, noise cancelling. I suggest you take care of this problem on your own. I’ll be monitoring your vitals from my office, since I don’t especially trust you now to only call me if something is actually wrong. Go crazy.”

Ignoring Jim’s protests, Leonard pulled the privacy screen around the captain and set it to buffer any sounds coming from inside. He then retreated to his office, pulled Jim’s vitals up on his PADD, sunk into his chair, and groaned. Of course this was happening. The universe hated him.

An hour left Jim’s hormone levels unchanged, but the pain sensors were indicating something may be wrong, so Leonard sighed and made his way back to his friend’s biobed.

For some reason not entirely clear to him, Jim was sitting on the biobed completely naked and still completely erect. 

“I thought I told you to take care of that on your own,” Leonard said, “Jim, this is the easiest order I have ever given you.”

“I tried, Bones! Multiple times! I don’t think this is something I can get rid of on my own,” Jim complained, and then wiped sweat from his brow, “Shit, it’s really hot in here, is it always so hot in here?”

“Your dick doesn’t know who’s touching it, Jim. ‘Can’t get rid of on your own’, now that’s a load of horseshit if I’ve ever heard one,” Leonard rolled his eyes. He probably wouldn’t discuss this problem in the same terms with most other patients, but it was Jim and they were best friends and, well, directness was usually key with the other man.

“Well it hasn’t gone down! At all! And ya know what, it fucking hurts! So can you  _ please _ …”

Leonard cut Jim off before he could dig himself into an even bigger hole,

“I would be happy to give you a hypo for that, I’m glad you asked.”

Jim had bitched loudly about the several hypos Leonard had pressed into his neck, but Leonard assured him that they would take care of the problem. They always did, even when some idiot ensign brought an “aphrodisiac” back from a strange planet and suddenly half the lower decks had erections that wouldn’t go away. These drugs  _ always _ worked. But apparently not this time, because Leonard gave them fifteen minutes and there wasn’t even a hint of change. He decided this had to have something to do with the strange drink Jim had been given back on the planet, so he gave Jim another hypo for the pain, told the duty nurse to keep an eye on Jim’s vitals but not let the captain out of medbay, and requested a beam down back to the planet.

The reception was just winding down as Leonard returned, completely out of place in the scrubs he had changed into because like hell was he going to work in his dress uniform. He ignored questions from his fellow crew members as he stalked through the reception hall to the ornately dressed council elder that had given Jim the drink a few hours earlier and demanded a word in private.

Once he and the elder - as well as several other aliens who clearly were the elder’s security team - were in a private room, Leonard launched into it,

“Okay, I’m going to give you one chance to tell me what the hell you gave the captain earlier.”

“Oh, you are referring to the drink we gave him,” the elder said, thankfully not bothering to try to deny it.

“Yes, I’m referring to the damn drink. What was it, how can we stop the effects?”

“The drink is a great honor among our people. It is given to our people as part of a mating ritual. The effects will go away on their own.”   


“When? The...state he’s in, it’s not good for him to be like that for so long. And he can’t make it go away on its own, if you catch my drift.”   


“Of course not. The microorganisms in the drink are only made inert by the release of similar hormones during intercourse between the one being honored and their mate.”

“I…” Leonard shook his head, appalled by what he was hearing, “Let me get this straight, you’re telling me that the captain actually has to have sex with someone for this to end? That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“Is that a problem? Are there rules against fraternization among your ships?” the elder asked, seemingly clueless as to why this was a issue.

“There are guidelines, not hard and fast rules, but that’s not the problem! Jim, the captain, he’s in an altered mental state! He can’t consent to sex like this! He doesn’t know what he really wants, nobody on the ship would take advantage of another like that. It’s not our way. There must be another solution,” Leonard demanded.

“You must understand, doctor,” the elder said, “We meant no harm to your captain, or to yourself. You have both been exceedingly helpful this week, and we wanted to return the favor.”

“Wait, what do I have to do with any of this?” Leonard asked. He didn’t think he liked where this was going.

“This drug, it’s meant to enhance sexual pleasure between both partners. It functions the most optimally when the one using the drug is with the partner they want the most, that is who the drug influences them to seek out, however it can be resolved by any willing partner. We simply wanted to give you and your husband…”

If Leonard had been drinking something, he probably would’ve spit it out. As it was, he flushed and cut the elder off, “The captain is not my  _ husband _ . He’s my best damn friend and I’m not going to take advantage of him in this state and neither is anyone else. Fix this.”

“Oh,” the elder said, finally looking sufficiently ashamed about the whole situation, “We have greatly misinterpreted the nature of your relationship, and for that I apologize.”

“Even if we were...together like that, I still wouldn’t want anything to do with a drug that makes him so horny he can’t think straight when he didn’t consent to the drug in the first place.  _ Fix this _ . Now.”

“There is an antidote…” the elder suggested, looking at the floor now.

“Great. Get it. Now,” Leonard demanded.

Annoyingly, the medical community on the planet had not yet developed the concept of hypos. The cure Leonard was given was in the form of a vial of clear liquid, to be injected intravenously. Sure, he could’ve converted it to be administered via hypo if he wanted, but he didn’t care to take the time. As it was, upon returning to the ship, he only stopped at the lab as long as it took to make sure that whatever they had given him wasn’t going to be actively harmful to Jim. Whether it would actually work was quite another story, but he supposed they would be finding out soon. Leonard was eager to put this whole affair behind him. Sure, Jim wasn’t in a lot of physical danger, in fact this may very well be hurting Leonard more than it hurt Jim. Having to watch his best friend come onto him - far too aggressively, mind you - all while knowing that Jim would never want any of this of his own free will...it hurt. Because Leonard did want it, and had for a long time. He was fine just being friends with Jim, in fact he was more than fine with it, but he wanted more and this all just felt cruel. Not on the part of Jim, obviously, this wasn’t his fault, but on the part of the universe, which seemed to perpetually have it out for one Leonard McCoy.

Entering the privacy curtain in medbay, Leonard found the captain sitting upright on the biobed, one hand wrapped around his still erect penis, and his jaw clenched tightly.

“Jim,” Leonard sighed, depositing the antidote on the side table and grabbing the disinfectant spray from a cabinet, “What the hell are you doing.”

“Bones!” Jim exclaimed, eyes flying open, “Oh my God, you have to help me. I don’t know what the hell is going on, it fucking hurts when I touch it.”

“Then don’t touch it,” Leonard suggested. That one seemed fairly obvious to him.

“Well it hurts worse when I don’t! The hypo you gave me didn’t do shit! I need you to…”

“You need me to do what, Jim? You think it would hurt any less if someone else touched it?”

“Well you have got those legendary hands...but I was hoping to get you on your knees. God, man, it’s all I’ve thought about for months, Bones, and I  _ need _ …”

“You need to go the fuck to sleep,” Leonard interrupted, slotting a sedative into his hypo and pressing it to Jim’s neck. 

“Hey!” Jim protested, “That’s just delaying the problem, ya know!”

“I’m gonna take care of you, Jim, I promise,” Leonard said soothingly, brushing some of Jim’s sweat soaked hair out of his face. Jim started swaying and Leonard helped him lay back onto the biobed, and by the time he was horizontal he was completely out, giving Leonard a chance to work uninterrupted.

He found a vein in the crook of Jim’s elbow and injected the contents of the vial into his friend’s arm. Nothing happened right away, it took about a minute until anything happened, and the something that did happen was for all of Jim’s vitals to completely bottom out. For a second, just a split second, all of Jim’s vitals hit zero, but by the time Leonard was even beginning to react everything was back, and back to normal. His heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, it was all normal. And his hormone levels were returning to normal as well. Leonard would’ve been able to see that even without the monitors. 

Leonard stuck around for about an hour, poking around medbay, giving Spock an update, and monitoring Jim’s vitals. When it became clear that Jim was perfectly fine, just asleep under the influence of the sedative he had been given, Leonard turned his care over to the night nurse and returned to his own quarters.

Leonard had assumed sleep would come quickly, however that did not prove to be the case. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he started thinking. There had been something that elder said that hadn’t been of particular importance at the time, but now he was wondering how he didn’t notice it. “The drink influences the user to seek out the partner they want the most.” That’s what the elder had said. And, well, Jim had been laser focused on Leonard all night. And then there had been that comment about how apparently getting a blowjob from Leonard was all Jim had thought about for months. But he didn’t know how much to trust anything Jim had said under the influence of that goddamn drink. And he didn’t know, even if Jim  _ did _ want him like that, if the feelings went any deeper than purely sexual. Leonard was not interested in a friends with benefits relationship. He loved Jim with everything in his very being, and for him it was either friendship or an actual romantic relationship. Nothing in between. He supposed that would have to be a conversation they had when Jim woke up. Great. That was going to be an absolute joy.

Come morning, Jim’s sedative had long worn off but he was still sleeping soundly in the biobed when Leonard arrived in medbay 15 minutes before alpha shift began. He woke his friend gently before busying himself with other tasks while Jim woke up slowly. A groan came from the direction of the occupied biobed and Leonard turned to see Jim slowly sitting up.

“God, I was  _ really _ hoping that had all been a dream.” 

“Oh, so you remember then,” Leonard observed. He had rather been hoping his friend would’ve forgotten the events of the previous night.

“Oh boy, do I wish I didn’t,” Jim groaned yet again, swinging his legs over the side of the biobed while Leonard ran some quick scans with his tricorder. Everything seemed to be in perfect working order. “How long was I out?”

“All night. Alpha shift starts in 10 minutes and you seem to be doing fine, so I’ll clear you for duty if you’d like.”

“Great, thanks Bones!” Jim smiled brightly, “Don’t take it personally or anything, but I’ve gotta go get changed if I want to be up on the bridge in 10.”   
“Your uniform is on the bed next to you,” Leonard pointed out. He had gone to Jim’s quarters earlier that morning, figuring that this exact situation would happen.

“You’re the best,” Jim remarked, slipping off his hospital gown and pulling on his uniform. As he zipped his pants, he seemed to remember something, blushed, then said, “Look, Bones, I’m, uh, really sorry about last night.”

“Not your fault. Don’t worry about it,” Leonard assured him, and Jim nodded and, still pulling on his boots, started to head towards the door. As he was about to leave, he turned around and asked,

“So, uh, how many people know?”

“The full details? Just us, Jim. The nurse on delta last night has a high level overview. But that’s it.”

“You didn’t tell Spock? You know, technically the CMO is supposed to disclose the medical status of crew members when it affects ship operations.”   
“Don’t you quote my own damn rule book to me, kid. I told Spock that you suddenly became ill, the usual treatments hadn’t worked, so I had to sedate you to give you something stronger but you should be back by alpha shift today. That’s all he needed to know. The rest is for you to tell or not.”

Jim knit his brows together then asked,

“So did you intentionally make it sound like I’d gotten, like, food poisoning, or…”   


“I’ve noticed that when people think you spent all evening violently expelling the contents of your digestive tracts out both ends, they tend not to ask further questions.”

“Oh, well, thanks.”

“Sure.”

“We still good for tonight?” Jim asked, referencing their weekly captain and CMO meeting, which always seemed to end in the two of them wandering back to one of their quarters to shoot the shit for hours. Usually Leonard looked forward to the standing evening with his best friend. But tonight?

“Sure,” Leonard sighed and Jim flashed him a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes before darting out of medbay. That had been...awkward.

“I have a peace offering,” Jim announced as he entered his ready room, where Leonard already sat on one of the couches. The captain was holding a bottle of bourbon, which he slid across the coffee table to Leonard. There was a tag attached to the bottle which read “Sorry for being a dick” and featured a little winky face.

“You don’t have to apologize, Jim. You were drugged by some weird aliens, it wasn’t your fault,” Leonard sighed, but cracked open the bottle anyways. He wasn’t going to turn down decent bourbon.

“Are you kidding me, Bones?” Jim laughed somewhat humorlessly, “I spent all evening sexually harassing my best friend and, God man I know we don’t have a ton of boundaries but I just stomped all over them. And then I panicked when I woke up and bailed before we could have a proper conversation about what actually went down last night. I feel like shit and I’m sorry.”

“Last night wasn’t your fault. You weren’t in your right mind. This morning though...probably could’ve gone differently.”

“I’m sorry,” Jim repeated and it struck Leonard that, given how much Jim hated emotional vulnerability and apologies, this must have been rather difficult for him. So he nodded, squeezed his friend on the shoulder, and said,

“It’s okay, Jim. We’re talking now.”

“So what happened?” Jim asked and Leonard sighed and explained the whole thing. He considered leaving some of his conversation with the elders out, specifically the part about how they assumed the captain and the doctor were married and how the drink resulted in the drinker pursuing the one they wanted the most, but Jim was excellent at sniffing out a half truth so he figured he might as well just get it all out there.

Jim listened silently, nodding occasionally, and when Leonard finished with the bit about the drink leading you to the one you wanted most, Jim blushed and leaned back into the couch.

“You can ignore that bit, if you’d like.”

“Is that what you want?” Leonard asked, something in his heart leaping because Jim didn’t deny it. He decided to push just a bit further, “And would you also like me to ignore the part where you said you’d been thinking about me sucking your dick for months?”

“That was a lie.”   


“Oh?”

“Most people would probably measure that unit of time in years, now.”

“Oh.”

“You kissed me back,” Jim pointed out, “Back at the reception, before you knew I had been drugged or whatever, you kissed me back.”

“I did,” Leonard agreed. His heart was racing but God he had no idea how this conversation would end. He was hopeful, but also damn terrified, because this was a moment of truth if he’d ever seen one.

“So...what now?”

“Suppose that depends.”

“Depends on what?”

Okay, so it was time to just get it all out then. “I’m in love with you, Jim. Have been for a while now. If you don’t feel the same, that’s fine. If you just want a quick fuck, then look elsewhere. And I know you don’t really  _ date _ , but…”   


“I don’t  _ not _ date,” Jim amended, and he was smiling this perfect bright smile as he cupped Leonard’s head in his hands and slowly brought their lips together. This was softer and sweeter than last night, but far more overwhelming. But Jim hadn’t given him a clear answer, and he was  _ not _ getting hopes up again, so he began to pull away. Jim caught him, though, and whispered in a tone Leonard had never heard from the other man before,

“Bones, that was an ‘I love you too’.”

Leonard simply nodded. He was speechless. He never thought he would hear those words cross Jim’s lips out of anything other than platonic affection. Emotionally, it knocked him on his ass. Physically, it led to him returning his lips to Jim’s, finally savoring the experience without any fear of what it meant. Jim kissed like nobody else Leonard had ever kissed before. Jim kissed like this single kiss was the most important kiss in the world. Jim kissed like he was in love. Leonard tried to convey the same message, sliding his lips from Jim’s and tracing them along Jim’s jaw, pressing kisses to each centimeter of his jawline and chin. Jim’s hands were shaking a little as he pulled Leonard in closer, and Leonard looked up at his wide blue eyes and asked,

“You doing okay?”

“More than,” Jim breathed, “God, Bones. It’s always been you. It’s always gonna be you.”

It didn’t necessitate a response, but as Leonard brought his lips back to Jim’s, he gave one anyways,

“I love you so damn much, Jim.”

“This almost makes me grateful those aliens drugged me,” Jim murmured against Leonard’s lips. Leonard pulled back just enough to elbow Jim in the ribs and roll his eyes,

“Don’t push your luck.”


End file.
